


Something Lost

by fightforyourwrite



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-24 09:26:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10738854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fightforyourwrite/pseuds/fightforyourwrite
Summary: What do you say to a stranger that you feel like you’ve known your entire life?





	Something Lost

**Author's Note:**

> *casually tries to write Nanaba for the first time despite not having done so in the past* 
> 
> *casually tries to write Mikenana for the first time despite not having done so in the past as well* 
> 
> 'sup?

Nanaba Kaspar was startled awake when she heard the buzzing of her phone. She rolled over on her battered mattress and reached over to grab the device off her bedside table. Her thumb slid across the screen to silence the alarm. 

With a sigh, she turned onto her back and looked up to the ceiling of her bedroom. Blinking once and twice again, she spent a good few minutes contemplating whether or not it was worth it to actually get out of bed today. 

Ultimately, the logic and reasoning in her mind made her sit up straight and get her feet to the floor, as it always did. 

Forcing herself awake was a matter of how much she pushed herself to not fall back asleep. She often slipped on a sweatshirt to keep her warm. Nanaba made sure to always do it before even thinking about going back to sleep. Then she would leave her bedroom and head out into the apartment. 

Nanaba lived in a place that she shared with other people, two of them to be exact. She was quite happy to have found a place with two bathrooms instead of one. It lessened her chances of having to wait before freshening up, and on most mornings, she was lucky enough to have one of them to herself. 

Nanaba walked into the nearest vacant bathroom and locked the door behind her. It was warm and steamy inside, implying to her that one of her roommates had just finished taking a shower. 

Fog stuck onto every surface, the taps, the window, and especially the mirror. 

Nanaba reached forward and wiped the mirror off with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. 

In her groggy state, she did not expect to look glamorous in the morning. In fact, Nanaba never considered herself to be glamorous at all. 

She predicted that she would look tired, worn down, just like everyone else did in the morning. But when Nanaba wiped off her bathroom mirror, she noticed a detail about her that she did not expect to see. 

She had been crying. 

Inexplicably, her cheeks were shining with tears and her eyes were red, like she had been sobbing endlessly for hours on end. 

Nanaba sucked in a breath and held it, confused and taken aback. 

Nanaba had not cried in a long time. Sure, she felt sad on occasion, but never in the last few years had she been broken to the point of sobbing. 

Quickly, she ran the tap and splashed some water into her face, rubbing until the stickiness of her dried-up tears was gone. 

Nanaba took slow breaths, feeling her lungs expand and constrict in a rhythmic pattern. 

She could not pinpoint what on earth was going on with her. 

Perhaps it was a phenomenon similar to sleepwalking. She had heard stories of people painting masterpieces or re-organizing their closets while still fully asleep. 

Perhaps Nanaba was like that, with the obvious exception being that instead of doing something productive in her sleep, she simply sobbed until her eyes turned red and puffy. 

After drying her face off with a hand towel, Nanaba sighed and forced herself to get on with her day. She hated being late and calculated the duration of her morning routines down to the very second. If she spent too much time doing one thing, she could miss an event and mess up her entire day. 

Nanaba often wished that she was born in Vancouver instead of having to had moved there all those years ago. 

She was originally born in a small town in the Canadian rockies that no one had ever heard of, so isolated from the ocean or the city and constantly surrounded by mountains. 

She felt cooped up during her childhood, since every direction she looked, she would see a mountain and only be reminded that she was stuck like a pig in a pen. 

Vancouver was different in the best way possible. It was free and close to the ocean, almost something out of her dreams. 

Nanaba walked through the skytrain station alongside of sea of people. Eight thirty was a particularly hectic time at any train station. 

Nanaba was never lucky enough to ever sit on the train during her morning commutes, since the train was already packed to the brim by then. 

But she could make do with standing, as the only thing that mattered was whether or not she made it onto the train at all. 

As she waited for her train, Nanaba’s thoughts brought her back to what happened to her in the bathroom. 

As she touched her cheeks with her calloused fingers, she wondered what on earth made her cry so hard. 

_ It couldn’t have possibly been a dream, could it?  _

It was absurdly unlikely. Nanaba could never remember her dreams after they had happened. 

_ How could something she couldn’t remember hurt her so much? _

In the past, she had experienced dreams that forced her awake, some that left her breathless in the middle of the night wondering what on earth just happened to her inside her head. 

But whenever she woke up to the buzzing of her phone, she couldn’t remember what startled her so much. 

All she could recall was tidbits, vague pieces of a very large puzzle. 

Her dreams were evidently vivid, realistic enough to leave her in shambles. Sometimes she could remember feeling joy, triumph. Other times, she could remember the exact opposite.

Agony, fear, hopelessness, and then suddenly nothing. 

Perhaps there was something wrong with her. Maybe now, she would start hearing her roommates chatter on about how she’s finally fucking lost it. 

Nanaba sighed and took her hand away from her face. She reached into her coat pocket to pull out her phone and check her schedule for the day. 

The electronic speakers at the skytrain station warned her that the next train coming, but it was not hers. She would have to wait a few more minutes for the next.

Nanaba stepped back and let other passengers gather to board a train she couldn’t take. 

Boredly, Nanaba watched as the train pulled up. The windows of the cars blurred in a mess until they slowed down and came into clarity. 

Nanaba’s eyes glanced across every face out of curiosity. She had gotten into the habit of people watching whenever she was waiting for transit. 

Nanaba’s gaze came across a person she had never seen before. However, a second spent looking at him was enough to trigger something in her head. 

He stood inside the skytrain car, having already boarding from a station before hers. In a sea of people, it was a man of great height, shaggy, dog-like hair, and a particularly large nose.

Nanaba couldn’t figure out why, but her heart started to race. It felt like it was going to burst out of her chest. 

The skytrain came to a halt and automatically opened the doors. Some people moved out while others tried to move in. It was a messy spectacle, but a part of everyday life in a city. 

Nanaba often kept a cool head. She never made impulsive choices and thought long and hard before she had to make a hard judgement. 

However, her reasoning flew out of her head and she started to move forward, boarding a train that wasn’t hers. 

She squished through all the people in the train car, being careful not to trample on anyone’s feet. 

Nanaba had no clue what she doing, nor any idea what she was chasing. 

But yet, there she was trying to make it through to a person she hadn’t seen before.

The doors of the train started to close the second Nanaba’s mystery man came into sight. 

When the train started to move, Nanaba had finally pushed through enough people to stand in front of the man. It was only then when she realized just how tall he actually was. 

The man was a damn giant, his head almost skimming the top of the skytrain. Nanaba had to turn her head up to look at him. 

At a closer angle, Nanaba spent time observing every detail she could about him; his scruffy beard, his pale grey eyes, the shaggy, unkempt blond hair on his head. He wore a rather expensive-looking tailored suit, a common outfit worn by men on the skytrain. He gave off the aura of professionalism, duty, authority. 

_ Why did she run to him? _

_ Why was he so familiar? _

Nanaba swore that she had never met a fellow like him in her life, but yet she was here, staring at him like she had found something lost. 

The train’s motion made it tough for Nanaba to balance inside the crowded skytrain car, but she could survive. 

Glancing up at the man, she tried to speak, but what came out of her mouth fell out in shambles. 

“Uh…” 

The man, now alerted to her attention, looked away from staring at nothing and down to her. He nodded in a friendly fashion and spoke, “Hey.” 

“Uh… hey,” Nanaba mustered.

He gave her a simple smile and glanced away, grabbing his phone from his jeans to focus on something else. 

She wanted to say something better than just that. She wasn’t usually like this. She hated losing her cool in front of people, so she kept it all in where no one could see it. 

As the train kept moving, Nanaba tried to get her mouth to move. The catch was that she had no clue what on earth to say to him. 

_ What do you say to a stranger that you feel like you’ve known your entire life?  _

Nanaba let out a breath, and on impulse, she ended up saying the first word that came to her mind. 

“Mike.”

The man perked up considerably, taking his eyes away from the phone screen. 

“Yes?” 

Nanaba blinked. 

_ How did she do that? _

_ How did she know who he was?  _

“Uh…” Nanaba said in breathy voice. 

“Do I know you?” asked the man now named Mike. 

“I don’t think so,” Nanaba responded. She looked down again and clenched her fist. She could feel her composure falling apart. 

“How’d you know my name?” Mike questioned further. He looked as if he was curious to how the predicament came to be, but not to the same extent that Nanaba was. 

“I…” Nanaba tried to speak again, but her mouth was starting to feel ridiculously dry. What the fuck was wrong with her? 

Mike looked sympathetic towards her, “Are you okay?”

Nanaba didn’t shrug nor shake her head. “I honestly don’t know.” 

The train was getting close to the next stop, Nanaba could tell. She couldn’t stay for long if she wanted to make it to work on time. Getting off at the next stop was the only thing she could do. 

“I’m so sorry,” Nanaba finished off. “This is… absolute lunacy. I should get going.” 

The train pulled up at the station in seconds, the doors automatically opening and the sea of people starting to move. 

Nanaba started to let the flow of commuters carry her out. She looked back at the taller man and said: “Goodbye, uh… Mike.” 

Promptly, she turned around and started to walk until her boots made it onto the platform. 

But behind her, Nanaba heard a voice calling to her. The voice of Mike. 

“Wait!” 

She turned around to see Mike fighting against the sea of people. The curiosity in his eyes had ignited to the same level as hers. 

“What’s your name?!” 

The station let out a bell chime, which was the alarm warning that the doors were closing. 

Knowing that she had a few seconds, she called out: 

“Nanaba! My name is Nanaba!” 

Mike looked like he was going to run out of the train to join her, but the two doors of the train closed, separating the platform from the vehicle. 

The tall man stood near the window of the train car as it started to move, his hand pressing on the glass. 

On impulses that she could have controlled on a normal day, Nanaba started to run. 

She dashed along the platform, dodging other commuters around her, and chased after the train. 

But as she expected, she couldn’t run forever. Soon, the train sped out of her range and out of her sight. It disappeared from the platform, and Nanaba ended up staring at it until it moved out of sight, gone forever. 

Something was lost again. 


End file.
